


Things Not Quite Forgotten

by The_Twisted_Kingdom



Category: The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25932964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Twisted_Kingdom/pseuds/The_Twisted_Kingdom
Summary: In which Scarlett never went back to Scotland and some things around the Old Town begin to remind her of things not quite forgotten...
Kudos: 3





	Things Not Quite Forgotten

**Things Not Quite Forgotten**

Scarlett Amber Perkins watched the clock. If she hadn’t known better she would have sworn that, just for an instant, the second hand moved backwards. That was ridiculous, however, and things like that didn’t happen. 

Shifting her gaze for a moment, Scarlett focused on her teacher. He was a tall man, with unremarkable brown hair and an unremarkable face, nevertheless, Scarlett liked him. Realising that her teacher had been telling the class which chapters they were expected to read over the weekend, and she hadn’t heard a word, Scarlett cast a panicked glance at her friend Anna. Her friend simply pushed her own notebook toward Scarlett who quickly wrote down the information she needed. With that, the bell rang and the class was dismissed.

Free for the weekend, students swarmed impatiently down the hallways and out into the street. Scarlett heard more than a few excited conversations about Halloween parties that seemed to be happening all over town tonight, and she grinned when Anna took hold of her elbow and tugged her along more quickly. 

“Come on, Scar,” her friend said over her shoulder. “We have to stop by my Nan’s before we go to the cinema.” Scarlett resisted a huff, but smiled at Anna. Her friend’s grandmother lived all the way over on the other side of the Old Town, and Scarlett always felt weird when she had to go with Anna to visit her. She didn’t know if it was the woman herself who made Scarlett feel that way - people said the woman was a witch - but Scarlett knew that witches didn’t exist, or maybe it was the fact that she and Anna always had to walk through the old graveyard to get to the bus stop on the other side. That place kind of gave her the creeps these days, although her mother had told her that she used to love playing there as a child. Scarlett thought it was weird that her mother had even let her do that to begin with. Who let their kid play in a graveyard, after all?

“The movie starts at six…,” Scarlett reminded Anna. Her friend was prone to chatting for hours with her grandmother, and Scarlett did not want to be late. She had been waiting for six months for this new Vampire movie to finally come to their little cinema, and had been more than a little excited when she’d found out that the first showing would be on Halloween Night.

“Yeah, I know. It won’t take long, I promise.”

Scarlett and Anna walked quickly in the direction of Anna’s grandmother’s house, discussing the endless possibilities of snacks they would need later on to get them through the film and, before long at all, they had arrived. Eyeing the tall and rather narrow house with slight unease, Scarlett drew a deep shuddering breath before following Anna to the door. Her friend had barely knocked when the door opened and a smiling, wrinkled face greeted them, and Scarlett wondered if the woman hadn’t been standing by the door watching them approach through the curtains.

“I knew you were coming,” Anna’s grandmother said, shuffling back from the door to let them in. 

“Hi Nanna!” Anna bounced up the step and hugged her grandmother before dropping her school bag by the door.

“Hello Mrs Hempstock,” Scarlett said, following Anna inside. 

“Girls.” Mrs Hempstock closed the door and shuffled into the living room, where Scarlett raised an eyebrow at a little tray on the table by the couch. There were three teacups sitting beside a large teapot with an array of scones. 

“Did mum tell you I was coming?” Anna asked, sitting on the couch and picking up a scone. 

“No, no…” Mrs Hempstock sank slowly into her old armchair, smiling a goblin smile at Scarlett as she did so. 

“Oh, okay.” Anna licked jam from her finger, “I was wondering if I could borrow your old photo album. I have a history project…”

“Of course.” The old woman indicated a worn brown book on the table beside Anna. Anna picked it up carefully and Scarlett looked around the room. Mrs Hempstock appeared to like photographs, her walls were absolutely covered in them. Scarlett looked at the people in the photographs, assuming that they were all family as they all looked like Anna, slim and blonde, with the same goblin smile as her grandmother. Half listening as Anna talked to her grandmother about her history project, Scarlett sipped at her tea, still looking at the photographs on the walls and wondering just how long Anna’s family had lived in the area as several of the older pictures appeared to have been taken in places that Scarlett recognised from the Old Town.

When Anna got up to use the bathroom before they had to leave, Scarlett found herself alone with Mrs Hempstock and did not know what to say. She shifted nervously while the woman looked at her, and Scarlett set her teacup down on the table as gently as she could. “Anna tells me you’re going to the cinema this evening…” 

“We are.” Scarlett replied, nodding. 

“A vampire film, she says.”

Scarlett nodded again, “Yes… we… have both been waiting for it to come here. London had it ages ago.”

“Do you like Vampires?” Mrs Hempstock asked and Scarlett looked at her, wondering why the woman was smiling her goblin smile again.

“I guess…”

“They don’t frighten you?”

“Well… they’re not real... My mother always told me that monsters in films shouldn’t be scary because they’re not real.” Scarlett frowned slightly, wondering why it was that her mother had been so adamant her daughter only concern herself with what was real. Mrs Hempstock’s goblin smile had grown wider. 

“But you know differently, don’t you, Scarlett?”

Scarlett blinked, looking at her friend’s grandmother. What did that mean? “I… guess they can be scary?”

“Especially on All Hallow’s Eve…” Mrs Hempstock was busying herself with a scone, and Scarlett watched her silently, growing more uncomfortable now and wishing Anna would return so that they could leave. “The veil is always thinnest at this time of year.”

“The veil?” Scarlett asked, confused.

“The veil between worlds, child.” Mrs Hempstock said it so matter-of-factly that Scarlett had no response whatsoever. “All manner of creatures are out and about.”

Anna came back into the room at that point and, to Scarlett’s immense relief, told Mrs Hempstock that they really must be on their way or they would miss the start of their movie. Mrs Hempstock walked the girls to the door, and waved them away as they headed through the front gate. Little hairs on Scarlett’s arms stood on end when the woman called to them to be careful on their way to the bus stop through the graveyard as it was All Hallow’s Eve, and they didn’t want to be snatched by ghosts or ghouls.

“She says such weird things sometimes,” Anna laughed, taking Scarlett’s arm as they jogged across the road and toward the nearest gate into the graveyard. Scarlett was pleased that Anna thought so too and, as the girls slowed to walk as they headed up the hill, she buttoned her coat a little more tightly against the autumn chill. As they walked, Anna chatted away about various things from kids at school and the usual gossip to what she would be doing next weekend when she visited her father in Bristol. Scarlett only half listed as the wind whistled past and the sky turned a pretty pink and purple as dusk approached.

Coming to a sudden stop, Scarlett stared at a crouched figure nearby. She watched as the man placed a large roll of paper across a gravestone and began rubbing at it. Unable to help herself, Scarlett drew a gasping breath as every hair on her body was raised. She had no idea why fear suddenly ripped through her, and she was unaware of anything else around her until Anna tugged furiously on her arm, pulling her around and dragging her away from the person by the gravestone. “Scar, what the heck?”

“What?” Scarlett asked, her voice not quite steady. 

“You just stopped…”

“I…,” Scarlett looked back at the man by the gravestone, still rubbing at his paper. “I… saw…”

“He’s just doing grave rubbings, people do them all the time here…”

Scarlett frowned, remembering, or not quite remembering, someone she knew once. “I know… I used to…” She frowned more deeply, “I mean, I think I did.” She dragged a hand through her long hair, “Maybe I saw people doing it when I used to play here. Mum says I used to come here all the time before we moved to Scotland.”

“Probably. It’s a nature reserve, you know?”

“Yeah…” 

“Come on, we’ll be late if we don’t hurry.” Anna began walking again and Scarlett followed her, unable to shake the feeling that she was being watched now. Turning, she watched the man doing his grave rubbings until they had turned a corner on the path and he was lost from sight. Why had seeing him had such an effect on her? She didn’t know why she had suddenly been flooded by fear. There had been nothing unusual or frightening about him at all. Perhaps Mrs Hempstock’s talk about ghosts and ghouls had rattled her more than she’d thought. 

The feeling didn’t go away, however and, in fact, only grew worse when they passed an old mausoleum that looked all too familiar to Scarlett. As dusk fell and the girls hurried as quickly as they could through the graveyard, Scarlett felt as if something was hovering on the very periphery of her perception. It was as if she was hearing an echo of something and whenever she tried to listen she was convinced that she had been imagining things. Whenever she felt as if eyes were following her, and she turned her head, Scarlett found only shadows.   
By the time she and Anna had reached the other gate near the bus stop, Scarlett had tried to convince herself that it was probably just a bit of deja vu from when she had played in the graveyard as a child, and that there was nothing more to it. Scarlett wasn’t sure that she believed that, however, but any other possibility was too unsettling and so she pushed it to the back of her mind, something that Scarlett had found she was rather good at.

By the time the next bus arrived, darkness had settled across the Old Town, and Scarlett anxiously checked her watch. It was just past five-thirty and she relaxed marginally when she realised that she and Anna had plenty of time before their movie. The bus would take them directly past the cinema and they would be there in just under ten minutes. With this thought in mind, she settled back against her seat and looked out the window. Watching the graves through the old gates as the bus drove past the graveyard, Scarlett thought she saw a pale shape moving through the darkness, but a moment later dismissed it as a trick of the lights on the bus windows. Nevertheless, Mrs Hempstock’s warning about the thinning veil between the worlds ran through her mind once again and Scarlett shivered. 

Anna’s excitement as they arrived at the cinema and made their way to the ticket counter distracted Scarlett from her unease, and she was able to focus on the fact they were about to see the movie they had waited so long for. By the time they had found their seats, in the absolute best position with regard to the screen and the speakers, Scarlett was well and truly prepared to enjoy their film. Anna chatted away again while they waited for the previews and set about opening every one of the packets of sweets they had purchased. When the lights dimmed and the movie began, Scarlett watched, transfixed, as a tall thin man with pale skin and dark hair made his way through an old graveyard. She was unable to look away as his velvet cloak swirled around him in thick fog and something tugged at her memory yet again. A velvet voice spoke quietly to her in her mind, _“So let us walk together, you and I…,”_ and Scarlett looked around, but apart from herself and Anna there were only a handful of other people in the room, and none of them were sitting nearby.

It was cooler outside when the movie had finished and Scarlett and Anna had headed out to the carpark to wait for Anna’s mother to collect them. Scarlett wished she’d brought her scarf, but she hadn’t figured she would need it when it was still over a month away from winter. Huddling by a low wall, the girls tried to keep out of the wind as they discussed the movie, analysing their favourite scenes and finishing the last of their snacks. They both jumped when Anna’s phone began to ring, and Scarlett listened as her friend answered it. 

“Yep… yep,” Anna nodded, getting to her feet and Scarlett followed, swinging her bag over her shoulder. “Yeah, we’ll come now. See you in a few.” Scarlett waited while Anna pocketed her phone and then met her gaze. “Mum’s picking up pizza for dinner. She wants us to meet her there.” 

Scarlett thought for a moment, trying to work out the best way to get to the pizza place a few streets over. “We could cut through Owen…”

Anna agreed and they headed into the street with Scarlett on her heels, heading down to an alley that would lead them to the next road. Trying to stick to the lights, Scarlett eyed the people passing them on the street, obviously heading to Halloween parties of their own. The costumes she saw ranged from generic ghosts and fairies, to rather scarier witches and dead things, and she found herself wishing that she and Anna had thought to organise something for themselves beyond a sleepover after their movie.

When they came to the alley they needed to cut through to Davenport Street, both girls hesitated. There were no street lights down the alley. There were no lights at all. “Uh…” Scarlett felt uneasy once again. 

“We can use my phone for light,” Anna said, holding it up and Scarlett, reluctantly, agreed. Following her friend into the alley, she tried not to trip on anything underfoot, and jumped when someone - she thought it was Anna - kicked a bottle across the concrete and an awful sound echoed off the walls around them. Scarlett hadn’t realised she’d been holding her breath until she bumped into something. The something was soft and she shrieked as blackness swirled around her and something went over her face. 

“Oh, sorry…” Headlights from a passing car flashed past and Scarlett found herself looking up at someone in a long black cloak, a cloak which was half stuck across Scarlet’s face as its owner tried to detangle from her. “Didn’t see you there.”

Scarlett pulled free and looked at the person again, faint light from the nearby pizza shop casting a weird glow into the alley, just enough to see by. He could have belonged to the film they had just seen, tall and pale with dark hair and darker eyes. She looked at the cloak again and realised that he was dressed as a vampire. “Okay…,” she murmured, moving toward Anna as the hairs on the back of her neck began to stand on end. _“So let us walk together, you and I…”_ The voice from before went through her mind again and, without another word to the vampire, Scarlett seized Anna’s wrist and hurried out of the alley and into the street, straight for Anna’s mother’s car which was parked nearby. 

By the time she’d gotten into the car and had done her seatbelt up, Scarlett realised that she was shaking. Images of the graveyard, and black cord, and fog, and a skinny boy, and a tall man wearing velvet all washed over her and it all came back. Everything that had been done to her and had been taken away came back. 

“Scarlett?” Anna asked, uncertainty clear in her voice. 

“I remember…,” Scarlett murmured.


End file.
